Car Bombing Kills 10 In Iraq

The 2nd Deadly Explosion In 24 Hours Spurs The Prime Minister To Vow To `Annihilate' Militants.

July 16, 2004|By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- After a second massive car bombing in 24 hours, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed Thursday to "annihilate" militants. He announced that his interim government is forming a national-security agency to fight the insurgency.

A car bomb that blew up near a government complex in Haditha, 100 miles northwest of Baghdad, killed 10 people, including three police officers.

In Karbala, south of the capital, police prevented more deaths when, acting on a tip, they chased an explosives-laden car. Two occupants blew up the vehicle, but no one else was hurt.

Insurgents also fired rockets into a refugee camp near the northern city of Kirkuk, killing six and injuring seven. Militants sabotaged Iraq's main north-south pipeline in two places, setting off blazes and halting oil exports to Turkey.

In Mosul, Salem Issa, Nineveh province security chief, said police had identified a decapitated body found in the Tigris River a day earlier as the remains of Georgi Lazov, a Bulgarian hostage reported slain Tuesday by his captors.

There was no word on the fate of a second Bulgarian whose abductors had threatened to kill him by Wednesday night unless U.S.-led forces released all Iraqi prisoners in their custody.

About midway along the highway between Baghdad and Kirkuk, gunmen fired on two cars carrying Foreign Ministry officials, killing one and wounding two.

A kidnapped Filipino truck driver who had been under threat of execution until Manila agreed to withdraw its last 43 troops appeared on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel to thank his government for acting to save his life.

A Saudi company announced it would cease business in Iraq to secure the release of its Egyptian employee abducted by militants who have threatened to kill him.

Meanwhile, Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who disappeared in Iraq and turned up in Lebanon three weeks later, arrived at Quantico, Va., a Marine Corps base south of Washington, on Thursday after six days of evaluation in a U.S. military hospital in Germany, a military official said.

Officials said Hassoun would continue to undergo a "repatriation" process until it is determined he is fit and capable of returning to normal duty, a process that could take months.